High performance blended membranes using a novel preparation technique

The possibility of applying novel microwave (MW) technique in the dissolution of polyethersulfone (PES) and lithium halides in aprotic solvent is studied. The lithium halides additives used are lithium fluoride (LiF), lithium bromide (LiBr) and lithium chloride (LiCl) and a comparison is made with conventional method. PES was dissolved in dimethylformamide (DMF) in the single solvent whilst for the double solvent (DS); PES was dissolved in a mixture of two different solvents DMF and acetone. The concentrations of lithium halide in both solvents were varied from 1 to 5 wt%. In order to illuminate the mechanism through which lithium halide influences the kinetic membrane performance in both techniques, rheological, FTIR, contact angle and water uptake analysis were performed. The performances of the membranes were evaluated in terms of pure water permeation (PWP), permeation rate (PR) and separation rates of various polyethylene glycols. Result revealed that the hollow fiber MW membrane with the 3 wt% LiBr additive exhibits both high permeation rates of 222.16 Lm-2hr-1 and separation rates of 99% and molecular weight cutoff (MWCO) of 2.6 kDa. In general, the MW membranes exhibited higher permeation and separation rates compared to conventional electrothermal heating (CEH) membranes. The FTIR, contact angle and water uptake measurement revealed that the LiCl and LiBr have enhanced the hydrophilic properties of the PES membranes thus producing membrane with high permeation and separation rates

Osteoporosis and its perspective in Pakistan: A review of evidence and issues for addressing fragility fractures

Despite major advances in osteoporosis diagnosis and treatment, low rates of investigating and treating osteoporosis in patients with fragility fracture are reported in Pakistan. Cost of therapies, time and cost of resources for diagnosis, concerns about medications and lack of clarity regarding the onus of responsibility to undertake this care, are some of the barriers to osteoporosis identification and treatment. Data from our part of the world on osteoporosis as well as on fragility fractures is sparse. This review addresses the current screening and diagnostic strategies for osteoporosis and reviews the existing literature to highlight the issues prevalent in our society on this major public health problem

Neuronal regeneration in denervated muscle following sensory and muscular neurotization

Background and Purpose: Neurotization of denervated muscles has been shown to improve muscle bulk, but the neuronal regeneration response has not been compared previously in different surgical techniques of neurotization. Thus, using a rat model of experimental skeletal muscle denervation, we studied neuronal regeneration following sensory neurotization by two methods: sensory nerve to motor branch of muscle and direct sensory nerve implantation to muscle. Material and Methods: The lateral head of the gas-trocnemius muscle was denervated in 36 rats, of which the first 12 served as denervated controls. In the second group of 12, the sural nerve was anastomozed to the motor branch of the gastrocnemius muscle (sensory-to-motor nerve neurotization) and in the remaining 12 rats the sural nerve was split into 4 fascicles and embedded into 4 quadrants of the muscle (direct sensory nerve-to-muscle neurotization). Immunohistochemistry was used to examine nerve fibers in muscle containing the sensory neuropeptides substance P (SP) and calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), and general neuronal marker protein gene product 9.5 (PGP 9.5). Results: Semiquantitative analysis showed that, compared to the control side, the number of nerve fibers on the experimental side was highest (p \u3c 0.01) for group III (direct sensory nerve-to-muscle neurotization) for all 3 markers. The difference was 71%, 298%, and 254% for PGP 9.5, CGRP, and SP, respectively. Interpretation: This method may be a good option for inducing neuronal regeneration in denervated muscles, and has therapeutic implications for prevention of atrophy of denervated muscles and as an adjunct for reconstruction of soft tissue defects

A Laboratory Based Study of Hydraulic Simulation of Leakage in Water Distribution Networks

It is obvious to all people the importance of water as an essential element for life, hence, water loss is a life-threatening and alarming predictor of the future. Leakage problem is one of the most important causes of water loss in water systems; therefore, it was and is still a matter of attention of many researchers, who are in search of the most effective methods to solve this problem using many techniques. These techniques vary with one another in terms of accuracy, cost and speed of obtaining results. This research paper presents a part of an extensive research work, which aims to develop a geospatial approach for solving the leakage detection problem in water systems using an integrated geospatial system. This paper will show a sample of the results that has been obtained through a lab experiment, which explains the changes in hydraulic behavior of the network due to the change in leakage size and leakage location as a step for validating the mentioned approach. Keywords: Leakage detection, water distribution networks, GIS, Hydraulic modeling

Synovial neuronal changes in knee joint osteoarthritis

Abstract Purpose: The purpose is to study whether pain and inflammation in knee joint osteoarthritis (OA) are associated with local synovial neuronal changes. Methods: Synovial biopsies were harvested from the medial and lateral knee compartments from OA patients undergoing total joint replacement surgery. All patients had predominant pain at the medial joint compartment. Pain and knee joint function were evaluated by knee society score (KSS). Synovial inflammation was analyzed by histopathological analysis and expression of growth associated protein-43 (GAP-43), sensory (SP, CGRP) and autonomic (NPY, VIP, TH) neuropeptides was studied by single and double immunohistochemistry techniques. Results: We observed reduced KSS and increased inflammatory score in synovial membrane of medial knee compartment. A significant increase in GAP-43 [P = 0.001], SP [P = 0.05], CGRP [P = 0.05] and TH [P = 0.05] expression was observed and SP, CGRP and NPY were found to be co-existed predominantly with GAP-43 in synovial membrane collected from medial compared to the lateral knee compartment. Conclusions: Regenerating nerve fibers containing sensory and autonomic neuropeptides are associated with pain and inflammation in knee joint O

Decentralized time domain muting for interference mitigation in LTE-advanced heterogeneous networks

User equipments (UEs) offloaded from the MeNBs to the PeNBs via cell range extension (CRE) bias in a co-channel deployment suffered severe interference. The severity of the downlink interference varies significantly with the change in the CRE bias. The baseline approach for Interference mitigation technique based on time domain muting (TDM) of resources by MeNBs used trial and error technique which is causing resource wastage and is practically not feasible. Proposed here is a Model for TDM based on estimated cell load conditions and symbol efficiency (SE) as metrics to determine the muting ratio of resources. System level simulation was conducted to validate the throughput performances and the MeNBs- PeNBs resource trade-offs of the proposed method. Compared to the baseline (centralized) approach, the proposed decentralized TDM algorithm exhibited optimal throughput performance and adapted to the change in CRE bias with better trade-offs

An Evaluation of 2-phase Charge Pump Topologies with Charge Transfer Switches for Green Mobile Technology

The development of charge pumps has been motivated by the power supply requirements of portable electronic devices. Charge pumps are inductorless DC-DC converters that are small size and high integration. The quality of the charge pump greatly depends on the effectiveness of switches to turn on and off at the designated clock phases. However, to date, no analysis has been carried out on the overall performance of charge pumps based on switch components in practice. This work demonstrates the characteristics of transistors as charge transfer switches and their effects on the performance of a charge pump. Three most common charge pump topologies are evaluated in terms of voltage drop due to on-resistance and charge loss per switch. Simulations are performed in 0.35μm Austriamicrosystems (AMS) technology for Dickson, Voltage Doubler and Makowski charge pump topologies in steady and dynamic states. In addition, the effect of switch parameters for different charge pump topologies are compared and analysed. We demonstrate that the Makowski charge pump is the topology for future green mobile technology

Tax Literacy Rate Among Taxpayers: Evidence From Malaysia

The extent of taxpayer knowledge can have a major impact on the degree of compliance with taxation rules and regulation. Low knowledge creates uncertainty about requirements of the tax regulation and can lead to high degree of involun-tary non-compliance. This study high¬lighted the importance of taxation knowledge by measuring Malaysian’s tax payers’ tax literacy rate taking into consideration the following criteria: 1) Individual ability to fill the tax return form inde¬pendently, 2) Taxpayer’s interest in learning about tax, and 3) Incident of errors in filling the tax re¬turn forms. Questionnaires were used in this study to ascertain the tax liter-acy rate. The results in¬dicate that among the respondents, professionals group has the highest percentage of tax literacy and the formers have the lowest percentage. Majority of the businessmen paid for services for fill¬ing tax return forms and high rank officers are the highest among the group for not employing oth¬ers for filling the tax forms. Businessmen have the highest incidence of error in filling tax return form and most of teachers reported no error in filling such forms. Most business-men showed interests and were willing to spend time to learn about taxation. They perceived taxation knowledge as an important tool for themselves and also for their family. Overall results indicate that more than 60% of respondents are tax lit-erate. However, a significant number of them are actually‘ functionally tax illiter-ate’. Most of them thought that they knew a lot about taxation as they had read them in the tax literature sent to them by the IRB. However, the evidence was con-trary to this conjecture. The in¬formation on the extent of taxpayers’ knowledge is potentially useful to the tax authorities to assist them in developing effective com-pliance enhancement policie